X-ray equipment is commonly used in the dental industry to assist dental professionals. Typically, the x-ray source and associated components are enclosed within a suitable high voltage housing, referred to as a tubehead housing, which contains a high-dielectric insulating fluid, such as dielectric oil, that also operates as a coolant. The housing may also provide shielding of the unwanted radiation outside a designated output window formed in the housing. It is important that the assembled tubehead housing provides a fluid tight seal to prevent inadvertant leakage of the dielectric oil from the tubehead housing.
Typically, the tubehead housing resembles a rectangle, i.e., having adjacent surfaces disposed at right angles to each other. For ease of assembly and to minimize the opportunity for leakage, it is preferred that the tubehead housing is comprised of only two pieces, such as a box structure and a lid. However, to complicate matters, portions of the tubehead housing surface require precision machining for such reasons as alignment between certain components within the tubehead housing and providing a fluid tight seal between tubehead housing components and the tubehead housing. Currently, tubehead housing configurations require precision machining to be performed on each portion of the tubehead housing, which significantly increases manufacturing costs. Additionally, such precision is further complicated in that the precision machining for at least one portion of the tubehead housing cannot be performed by a standard machining tool, such as an end mill, which requires “straight on” access. In other words, a straight cutting tool that can only be advanced in a straight line is incapable of machining all the required surfaces of at least one of the tubehead housing portions. The additional nonstandard precision machining techniques required to machine these remaining surfaces further increase manufacturing costs. Finally, once machining to the tubehead housing has been completed and the internal components installed, current tubehead housing configurations fail to provide sufficient accessibility to the internal components.
What is needed is a tubehead housing construction for securing x-ray components therein that is easy to manufacture, including subsequent precision machining, and having ease of accessibility to internal components when the tubehead housing is disassembled.